The very serious traffic accident that occurred on Saturday 11 December, in the XIIIe arrondissement of Paris, left one dead and twenty injured, including three in serious condition, the Paris prosecutor’s office said Tuesday evening, December 14. The latter opened an investigation and specified that the causes of the accident caused by a Tesla taxi “Are the subject of investigations covered by secrecy” . For his part, the Parisian taxi company G7 has decided to no longer use the brand’s models driven by 37 of its drivers while awaiting the results of the investigations.
Asked by The world, Tesla excludes the hypothesis of a blockage of the accelerator or a sudden disturbance of the cruise control. Although it was not able to inspect the Model 3 sedan, which was almost completely destroyed in the accident, the brand assures that the vehicle did not suffer “No technical failure”. Tesla is able to remotely operate updates or certain adjustments (power delivered, battery charging management or driving aids) on its cars like smartphones. Conversely, it has telemetry data from its vehicles.
“We are able to know what happened or what did not happen on board one of our models”, assures a spokesperson for Tesla in France, without specifying the type of information collected at the end of the Paris crash. The investigation will have to determine why the driver, who was traveling at very high speed, lost control of his vehicle.
A brand that aims to be a pioneer in autonomous driving
In January 2020, Tesla had resolved to publish an update denying that its models could be subject to ” unintentional accelerations “, As some drivers in the United States had accused. ” We investigated every incident and whenever data was available we were able to establish (…) that the car accelerates if, and only if, the driver has decided to do so Tesla assured. The firm specified in particular that the accelerator pedal has two sensors and that in the event of a malfunction (simultaneous pressing on both pedals, for example) the engine torque is immediately cut off.
In addition to the emotion caused by such an accident, extremely rare in Paris, the fact that it involved a Tesla gives it a particular relief. This brand is not only synonymous with highly rated electric cars; Elon Musk’s firm also wants to be a pioneer in autonomous driving, even if it means shining the spotlight on it when a serious accident involves one of its vehicles.
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